Hell, they just devoted a whole hour to a Bobby story and didn't have anything new to say about *him* either. What's the point? And why should this all motivate me to tune in for a sixth season?

You are preaching to the choir about that, Syl! I've said it over and over–neither brother can die, or I will be soooooo upset! The fact that we're getting a sixth season of the show comforts me, but I'm hearing rumors that Dean is going to be an angel? I do NOT want that to happen, because it means he's going to die, or at least I assume so. I don't want Dean an angel while Sam is human, that just doesn't work for me! I want both brothers to be human. On the other hand, if Sera can make it work, I'll watch. I don't want to be another SPN naysayer.

I guess I'm getting REALLY worried. I read something in the new TV Guide that I didn't mean to read, a huge spoiler, and I'm so pissed I accidentally read it! DAMN!

I think it's reasonable to be a rabid Jared OR Jensen fan, both boys are so pretty and talented, each in their own way, and who am I to deny them their passionate fangirling? Or fanboying, for that matter. But it's not reasonable to tear down someone just because you can, or because they took a moment to point out something that wasn't quite working for them.

But if you were actually able to sit down and poll all the fans, including the ones who watch, but don't have an online presence, that's when the real numbers would come out, and I think it might look more like what you described, with Dean just barely edging Sam out. And there would be a possibility that it would come out even too. If you added the chance to select "Both" then I think Sam and Dean would each lose their individual category, and the two of them together would take the majority. That's one of the reasons that I think TPTB are screwing themselves over by greasing the squeaky wheel to the detriment of the rest of the machine. That squeaky wheel could stop squeaking, and by then everyone else will have lost interest, or be so thoroughly meh about things that they won't respond to the grease.

However, personally I would hesitate to think that any of it is Jensen's doing. He's only human, and surely has flaws somewhere (and they're certainly not visible on the outside), but I just don't think he'd deliberately undermine Jared that way. He seems too nice, and too loyal of a friend to do that. Clearly I don't know him personally, but I'm going on what we have collectively heard about him and seen him do. I might have misunderstood some of what you said, but I kind of got that impression and I wanted to make sure it was clear that wasn't what I meant.

Now who I do blame is Kripke. I would hesitate to call Dean a Marty Stu, since he has way too much development and depth for that, though that's not all down to writing. But I do wonder sometimes if there's not some vicarious living going on from the writers room into the character. I also don't know that Kripke's plan ever existed. He's gone back on it so many times that it makes a person's head spin, so I don't think it was ever as gelled as we were lead to believe. I think fandom has had a HUGE influence on the show we're getting right now, and that's not necessarily a good thing. I totally agree that trusting in Kripke isn't a good idea, unless you happen to belong to the portion of fandom he's currently catering to. That's why the change in leadership next season has me slightly, ever so slightly, hopeful that things will improve. Sera has her flaws, for sure, but of all the remaining writers/producers, she's the only one who seems to remember that Sam used to be more than a plot device.

I would love Sam to get a hero moment, and for it to be recognized both on the show, and by fans. When Dean saves the day it's "oh Dean! He's so awesome!" On the rare occasion that Sam gets to do so on a smaller scale, it's "eh, Dean would have gotten out of it somehow. He can take care of himself." Unless things change, I think once show is over I'll put my Season 1 & 2 DVD sets (the only ones I have purchased, or intend to purchase) and pretend that the show ended right there in that cemetery with the YED's stolen corpse rapidly cooling as the boys settled in to the work they had to do. That was my show.

And really that's an illustration of what I mean by Sam, and Jared, being treated as second-class. Sam isn't Dean, and Jared isn't Jensen, and therefore they're a waste of time and space, and why would you want to write about THEM? Surely there are better things you could write about. They're not good enough for an actual reviewer to spend even a few lines on, much less actual content. Isn't that what second-class is? Lesser than the first class? They, and in my opinion, the show runners, certainly seem to think that way, that Sam and Jared are worth much less than their counterpart.

I'm with you on the confidence in Jared. He definitely has enough style and grace to carry on. It just frustrates me that he has to. I've mentioned it before, but at the con in Vancouver I complimented him on his work in Season 4. I had already moved slightly past his table in the autograph line when I remembered to say it, and he was signing something else, but I turned back and said it anyway. He seemed surprised, but he looked up at me and gave me this huge, sparkling, dimpled smile and thanked me very sincerely. I got the feeling he doesn't hear that a lot from fans, and that's not right. Clearly everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I know I'm not the only one who thinks that way, so I hope that stuff like that can reach his ears more often.

But his fans are treated badly by the other side of things, definitely. Not here so much, though you'll notice how quickly and vocally even a comment here will get attacked if it's seen as being "Mean to Dean". Other places aren't so nice though. We're called whiners, moaners, told to stop watching, quit taking it seriously, to shut up and watch the show as it's being presented, etc. Jared himself is attacked, fairly regularly, which has always both angered and amused me. Surely those fans don't think that Jensen would want them to go after his costar that way, not when they're friends, but it doesn't stop them. Sam can't take a breath onscreen without catching hell for something. Everything he does is wrong, even when he barely does anything at all. It's definitely a case of the haves and have nots, with Sam/Jared fans being the latter. The haves are getting exactly what they want and come across as though that makes them superior to the fans who don't like the way things are going. It might be a LITTLE better now, as more and more people are growing dissatisfied with one aspect or another. But at the first, it was harsh, and unrelenting.

The thing is though, I'm not sure that the fabulous Dean show is making them so much more money than the way things were before. It brought the show some attention that it might not have gotten otherwise, and it may have brought in a few advertising dollars. But Show's reliant on the fans, the die hard, hard core, rabid fans that watch faithfully every week, and download episodes (legally of course). The huge fan conventions rake in the dough as well. But the fans would still do all of those things if the Show had never changed format. Which is essentially what it did. It went from a show about two brothers, to a show about Dean with Sam in the background. So I'm not so convinced that they did themselves that many favors with the switch, especially since they're running the real risk of alienating a good, if quiet, portion of their fanbase permanently. They might think they can afford to do that now, when things seem okay ratings wise, though really, the ratings this season haven't been very good, but what about if the critics turn on them? The casual viewers disappear? Suddenly they're back to just the fans. Only they don't have as many of them as they used to have, because they threw all the ones who didn't worship Dean and drool over Castiel aside and basically said "Screw you". It might never come to that, but it's a risk they're taking, and at this point, after being ignored and belittled for going on two years, I'm starting to hope it does happen just to teach them all a lesson on how you can cut off your nose to spite your face.

Hey, at least you're trying. I gave up on even doing that much a long time ago. The only thing I content myself with is that Jared seems to be a very happy newlywed, so he's probably not overly concerned with Sam being left out of, or minimized, in the 100th episode. But I still feel like it's a huge smack down for the fans, and that's not right. It seems to me that the powers that be are putting all their butter on one side of the toast, and they'd better hope that if they drop it, that toast lands butter side up, because the other side won't be any help to them after the way it has been treated. Now I want toast.